Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi has clearly aligned his country with the EU and the Atlantic alliance, with strongly worded messages at recent G7 and NATO summits that end his predecessors’ ambiguous position towards Russia and China.
After years in which Italy’s populist and far-right parties cozied up to autocratic regimes in Moscow and Beijing, Draghi’s comments returned Italy to the West’s democratic fold.
For the former European Central Bank president, a veteran of Goldman Sachs and the World Bank, Italy’s place is at the heart of the West, as part of the European family and with like-minded democracies.
After the G7 summit last weekend with US President Joe Biden, Draghi railed against “China and in general all autocracies ... which use disinformation ... stop planes in flight, kidnap, kill, do not respect human rights, use forced labor.”
The tough language anchors Italian diplomacy “in its history,” Draghi said.
The statement signal a break with the attitude of the administration of former Italian prime minister Giuseppe Conte, which comprised the anti-establishment Five Star Movement (M5S) and the far-right League of former Italian minister of the interior Matteo Salvini.
Salvini, who also served as deputy prime minister, was a big admirer of Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-US president Donald Trump.
Of the Russian leader, he said: “There should be dozens of men like him in this country, who act in the interest of their own citizens.”
In March 2019, under Conte’s government, Italy became the first G7 country to sign up to China’s Belt and Road Initiative of transport and trade links stretching from Asia to Europe.
During a visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), Conte signed a “nonbinding” protocol to take part in the project, sparking concern in Brussels and Washington.
Draghi promised to “examine it carefully,” when asked about the protocol on Sunday last week.
“Nobody is disputing the fact that China has the right to be a large economy like the others that were sitting around the table, but what we discussed were the methods the country uses,” he told reporters.
For Jean-Pierre Darnis, a scientific adviser for the Rome-based think tank the International Affairs Institute, the change in attitudes is clear.
“Mario Draghi has re-established at the head of the Italian government a classic pro-European, pro-Atlanticist policy,” he said.
Draghi also knows how to do his sums. While Italy is the main beneficiary of the EU’s 750 billion euro (US$894 billion) COVID-19 recovery fund, it had an 18.6 billion euro trade deficit with China in 2019 — before patterns of global commerce were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. The shortfall with Russia was 6.4 billion euros.
In terms of countries to which Italy exports, China and Russia are ranked ninth and 16th, far behind Germany, France and the US, official figures show.
For Massimo Franco, a commentator with the Corriere della Sera newspaper, Draghi’s comments against China and Russia were intended not only for Italy’s allies, but were also “a message aimed at the parties in his government.”
M5S and the League remain in government as part of a national unity coalition that encompasses almost all of Italy’s main political parties, which agreed to serve under Draghi to tackle the pandemic.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the